Three groups filed testimony with the California Public Utilities Commission opposing PG&E’s plan to put its 2,600 miles of fiber on the market, as dark strands and for lit service (links are below). Caltel, a lobbying group for telecoms resellers – CLECs – offered quibbling and self-interested comments. The two others – the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates and TURN, an old school utility consumer advocacy organisation – urged the CPUC to either reject the plan or cripple it with nonsensical restrictions, on the basis of an outdated and narrow view of what utility regulation is all about.

For TURN and ORA, it’s about micromanaging PG&E’s fiber in the same way as its regulated, monopoly electric and gas business. They give no thought to the benefits of having an independent source of dark fiber or lit service in northern California. ORA and TURN make one dimensional arguments about what might or might not be fair to PG&E’s electric customers and, remarkably, to big incumbent telecoms companies, while ignoring the fact that electric consumers are also broadband and telephone subscribers. Protecting broadband companies that exercise unregulated monopoly and duopoly control over prices and products from PG&E’s limited competition will only hurt consumers.

Dark fiber is a critical resource for independent, competitive telecoms operators. Thanks to the CPUC’s reliance on TURN and ORA – instead of exercising its own initiative – CenturyLink will be rolling Level 3 Communications’ previously independent dark fiber into its monopoly-centric business model over the next two years. Ironically CenturyLink controls a significant amount of the capacity on PG&E’s fiber routes, via its acquisition of Level 3-owned IP Networks. The CPUC would not be serving the public interest if it protected CenturyLink’s monopoly by locking PG&E out of the telecoms business, or restricting its ability to fully use the fiber it owns.

The CPUC has the responsibility to maximise value, quality and availability across a range of utility services for Californians, individually and for the economy as a whole. It should fulfil its responsibility by independently evaluating all the pluses and minuses of PG&E’s telecoms plan, and not relying solely on the arguments of narrow interests.